ADELAIDE NEILSON
“And O, to think the sun can shine,
The birds can sing, the flowers can bloom,
And she, whose soul was all divine,
Be darkly mouldering in the tomb!”
—W. W.
From a miniature on porcelain.
Author’s Collection.
cleverly written, while other portions were clumsy and turgid. It depicted the experience of a Russian serf, Paul Arniff, who, loving an imperious woman of exalted social station, Marianna Droganoff, and finding his passion played with, first forced that disdainful female into marriage with him (as an alternative to drowning with him, on a remote tidal island to which he had lured her), and subsequently, raising himself to distinction by development of his natural talents, gained her genuine affection, and made her happy. Recalling the production of that play, Belasco writes: “At the time ’Paul Arniff’ was put into rehearsal there was in the Baldwin company a tall, slender young woman of singular complexion and striking appearance, whose stage name was Adelaide Stanhope. She came from Australia, where she had gained some reputation, but she had had no good opportunity at the Baldwin and was discouraged and dissatisfied. She and I had become friends, she was cast for the heroine of my play and, knowing the cause of her discontent and wishing to help her, I built up her character all I could during rehearsals,—O’Neill, ever chivalrous, generous and sympathetic, acquiescing, though it encroached a good deal on his own part: but the success she made and her consequent happiness more than repaid us both. She afterward became the wife of Nelson Wheatcroft, with whom I was associated at the Lyceum and the Empire, in New York.”—The Baldwin stock company, succeeding Miss Neilson, presented “Paul Arniff” on July 19, 1880, and acted in that play for one week. This was the cast:
| Paul Arniff | James O’Neill. |
| Count Andrea Droganoff | James O. Barrows. |
| Baron Woronoff | John Wilson. |
| M. de Verville | —— Doud. |
| Father Eliavna | —— Nowlin. |
| Marianna | Adelaide Stanhope. |
| Princess Anna Orloff | Jean Clara Walters. |
| Countess Droganoff | Kate Denin. |
| Wanda | Blanche Thorne. |
| Tforza | Nellie Wetherill. |
WANING FORTUNES AT THE BALDWIN.
Adelaide Neilson’s farewell season at the Baldwin Theatre (during which it was guaranteed that she should receive not less than $500 a performance) was almost the last notably remunerative engagement filled there during Maguire’s tenancy of that house. Indeed, theatrically, “the most high and palmy state” of San Francisco was passed, and the history of the Baldwin, and of the stock company at that theatre, for the two years which followed (July, 1880, to July, 1882), is one of anxious striving, strenuous endeavor, often brilliant achievement, public indifference, defeated hopes, declining fortunes, fitful renewals of prosperity quickly followed by periods in which bad business grew always a little worse, and ultimate failure and disintegration. When Belasco began his effort to rehabilitate and reëstablish himself there, “playing mostly bits,” as he expressed it to me, James H. Vinson and Robert Eberle were, officially, in charge of the stage and, though he did much, if not most, of the actual labor of stage management, his services were not publicly acknowledged. For reasons of business expediency, therefore, he, for a time, reverted to use of the name of Walter Kingsley, which appears in various programmes. After a few weeks, however, Eberle withdrew from the stage, devoting himself to business affairs of the theatre, and Belasco soon worked back into his former place as director and playwright. His “Paul Arniff” was followed, July 26, by the first presentment of a drama, taken from the French, entitled “Deception,” by Samuel W. Piercy, who personated the chief character in it, Raoul de Ligniers. Later, that play, renamed “The Legion of Honor,” was presented by Piercy in many cities of our country: it was brought out at the Park Theatre, New York, on November 9, 1880. That capital actor Frederic de Belleville, coming from Australia, made his first appearance in America when it was acted at the Baldwin. “Deception” was followed, August 9, by “An Orphan of the State” (known to our Eastern Stage as “A Child of the State”), and, on August 16, by the first appearance of John T. Malone, who performed as Richelieu,—Barton Hill playing De Mauprat. Belasco greatly liked Malone and, in his “Story,” gives this glimpse of him: